Play in the City 2013

Phoenix

Mlord

Play in the City 028

Hopelessness

Eastern State Penitentiary is a crumbling heap of rock and iron. While, in its heyday, it was a marvel of prison technology, the methods are today understood to be cruel and inhumane. Cells were designed to cut off all interaction, except with the guard, who wore wool socks over their shoes so as to minimize the sound of their footfall, and with the preacher, who attempted to convert them to Protestantism. There was nothing to do except work, and if one attempted to communicate with other prisoners, he or she was punished.

ESP was a marvel of technology. It had a revolutionary heating and plumbing system not present even in the White House at that time. Thick walls prevented prisoners from speaking to one another, for ESP was not intended to be an ordinary prison. Rather than just house criminals, it would isolate them, induce self-contemplation, and lead to repentance. ESP was a pioneer in the pursuit of reforming prisoners through isolation. Its creators believed that prisoners in solitude would come to terms with their crime, repent of their sins and go on to live more wholesome lives. The design of ESP forced prisoners to spend time examining their own hearts, and, ideally, to pray for forgiveness. It provided prisoners ample time and silence to think over their wrongdoings.

I could see the lonely walls, which have witnessed too much. I could see the abandoned floor, which has been victim of pacing and madness. I could see the abused door, which has been the tool of solitude and punishment since 1829. I could see the Eye of God, but didn’t feel as if that could save me. I felt the bulge of my smart phone in the back pocket of my jeans. Resisting the urge to check if I had any messages, I sighed and looked around the room for the umpteenth time. My time in the Eastern State Penitentiary was merely a fraction of what the prisoners in the past had spent; however, in this day and age, with technology and our decreasing attention spans, it felt as if I was in there for months.

Our dependency on technology makes it difficult for us to stay still for long periods of time. These days, it is almost impossible to go a day without consulting some kind of machine or device. Letters have been replaced by emails, which have been replaced by text messages. Instead of waiting seven days to receive a letter from a friend, we now only have to wait seven seconds. We have developed an intolerance of anything that takes longer than a few moments, and this is why half an hour alone in a nineteenth-century prison cell seems like such torture to my generation.

Eastern State Penitentiary’s Quaker reformers had high hopes to create one of the first revolutionary and successful prisons of their time.  Their model was the largest and most expensive ever erected and soon inspired other prisons and jails across the world.  It’s grand gothic architecture was successful in isolating prisoners and minimizing contact between inmates.  Eastern State was the first prison to offer heating and plumbing in every cell, a luxury not even available to the President in the White House at the time.  Beforehand, prisons treated inmates with extreme physical punishment and labor.  Eastern State took on a new approach where they left criminals alone in their cells to contemplate their wrongdoings and repent.  This horrible neglect did not produce the results that were highly anticipated, however.  Much more torture than privilege, criminals were forced to remain alone in their cell without contact or communication with the outside world.

Eastern State tried to mentally break me down with silence and darkness. Eastern State was a lonely, maddeningly quiet and boring cell, and unproductive waste of his time. Eastern State Penitentiary is an unusual prison where inmates rarely have the chance to communicate with others, which makes me try to find ways to talk to other inmates more. From the POV of Samuel Bruster, an uncooperative prisoner sentenced to five years of solitary confinement, ESP is a place where if you follow the rules and life a life in solidarity, it will drive you mad, as these conditions are not humane.

The original design of Eastern state forced people to really look into themselves and their actions, alone in a cell with nothing to do but explore your own mind allows a person to form a new perspective on themself. The cell is cold and a little bit smelly. I am afraid and do not want to stay any longer at all. The grey walls around me make me feel lonely and constrained.  Eastern State seemed more like a place of torture than reform. Solitary confinement can quickly make a person go mad, so I understand why Eastern State had so many problems, especially after getting a short glimpse at what the prisoners experienced.

      Eastern State Penitentiary was an innovative attempt at changing the very hearts of prisoners, but which failed to take into account the role of kindness. It is a place where prisoners try to fight against isolation, which is meant by the builders in order to make the inmates contemplate and reflect towards reformation. It started out as an attempt to reform individulas but even now the corruption and evolution of corruption is visible in the empty space. I see how everyone lived and cannot imagine how they managed to stay alive—the conditions this place holds serves to no ones sustainability to survive. Eastern State Penitentiary now looks the way it made the prisoners feel: empty, broken, and alone. Eastern State was a prison unlike any other, where the methods were so damaging to the human spirit, and was so radical that the fascination that came with the prison was far greater than the suffering.

Eastern is a relic, a decrepit pile of rocks and metal. While in its heyday it was the height of prison technology, it was, in many ways, utterly inhumane. [Cells] smaller than they should have been, particularly for housing two people, and designed to cut off interaction with others- that is torture. Eastern State is a lens into the past, showing the beginning intentions of incarceration in the US and how they changed. It’s an inspiring and illuminating pioneer in reforming the prisons although it failed.

 Eastern State was a prison unlike any other, where the methods were so damaging to the human spirit, and was so radical that the fascination that came with the prison was far greater than the suffering. Eastern State is not successful. Treating prisoners so cruelly with isolation will only drive them madder. ESP was a place you wouldn’t want to end up in lest you enjoyed the company of your own criminal soul and the judging eye of god.  Prison reform in Eastern State was one of the cruelest and severe. Prisoner’s lack of communication and isolation did not aid in improvement but rather inspired rebellion. Eastern state was a cold, somewhat menacing, but still contemplative, cell, separated from everything. 

Eastern State Penitentiary is the humane and right way to reform criminals.  To give inmates a chance to do contemplation, to think, to reform themselves.  A place of aesthetic beauty from outside.  A place of silence and regret from inside.  No cruel punishment so as not to make them feel hated or unaccepted by the society, so that they could return to the society and be decent citizens.   A dream that one point lived on but now has closed to face a new era. Disappointment.  The original idea of build such prison is good. But the truth is, it overlook the prisoners' crazy behavior.  Today, it stands as a symbol of our dashed hopes.  It was corrupted over the years not by loose morals and flagging ideals but by the sheer pressure of numbers.   I see the overcrowding, the understaffing as a complete disregard for the ideals of this place. 

There are still hundred of thousands of prisoners today kept in dungeons, medieval-like conditions, for years, huge portion of their lifetimes, with nothing but conditions for their brains to to rot, be warped, and emerge with hatred, anger, and frustration toward the world. It might be easier or safer for some of them to stay in jail. But I could feel the misery and insanity of these place and it was suffocating.

It was not a luxury to live in it, to be confined to your thoughts. It is very much the same; it is harsh and unforgiving. The endless and repeating days are terrible. But sitting here for 5 years, isolated, dark, lonely, I really want real life. It seems prisoners became more like objects to be placed somewhere than people who needed reforming. The isolation is the punishment actually in this place. I cannot imagine if I stay in such place day by day without talking.

Conflict of silences. Communication can’t be stopped. It has all passed.